A botched liquor store heist leaves three grisly dead. A hero cop is missing. Nobody could see a pattern in these two stray bits of informationβno one except Detective Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins, a brilliant and disturbed L.A. cop with an obsessive desire to protect the innocent. To him they lead to one horrifying conclusion--a killer is on the loose and preying on his city. From the master of L.A. noir comes this beautiful and brutal tale of a cop and a criminal squared off in a life and death struggle.
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Review
βOne of the great American writers or our time.β β Los Angeles Times
βA blood poet who writes as chain saws crank, Ellroy has vigorously redefined the well-shadowed turf of contemporary crime fiction.β* βThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution *
"An undeniably artful frenzy of violence, guilt, and unappeased self-loathing. Ellroy's crime fiction represents a high mark in the genre." --Newsday
βEllroy rips into American culture like a chainsaw in an abbatoir.β --Time
"He's forged a style uniquely his own. Energetic and abrasive, it comes at us like a speed freak. . . . The power and pull of Ellroy's writing is unmistakable." --Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Ellroy is the author of some of the most powerful crime novels ever written." --The New York Times
βGarrotte-tight prose. . . . [Ellroy is] a force of nature, stringing together words into barbed-wire lariats which he then uses to choke the bejesus out of you. . . . His novels are all muscle, zero fat.β --Austin Chronicle
"Memorable, stunning, incisive. . . . It is possible, I think, to make the argument that in the past couple of decades, Mr. Ellroy has been the most influential writer in America." --Otto Penzler,The New York Sun
βNobody in this generation matches the breadth and depth of James Ellroyβs way with noir.β --Detroit News
"Ellroy sprays declarative sentences like machine-gun bullets, blasting to kingdom come all notions of justice, heroism, and simple decency." --Entertainment Weekly
"[Ellroy] can make the night world of sleaze and street monsters come alive on the page." --St. Louis Globe-Democrat
About the Author
James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L.A. Quartet novelsβThe Black Dahlia , The Big Nowhere , L.A. Confidential , and White Jazz βwere international bestsellers. American Tabloid was Time βs Novel of the Year for 1995; his memoir My Dark Places was a Time Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book for 1996; his most recent novel, The Cold Six Thousand , was a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year for 2001. He lives on the California coast.